Lewis Caroll

Translator: R. Keao NeSmith

Since the book was published in 1865, various versions of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland were released in many various languages. Now, here is a version in Hawaiian as well.

ʻĀleka is a story of the nineteenth century, though it is not one of the foreign stories that were translated into Hawaiian in that era. The author tries here to maintain the translation and writing style of the era by using the foreign stories translated into Hawaiian in the nineteenth century as reference texts and models to follow with regards to the type of language and the style of translation used for this story.

Through nineteenth-century translations, Hawaiian readers were taught a great many things about various countries, such as animals not found in the Hawaiian Islands and various cultures and foreign tongues. Hawaiians of that century were very curious about peoples and cultures around the world and it is for this reason that those of the era were attracted to stories from various places around the world.